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Russian Ground Assault on Kyiv Halted; Warsaw Mayor Pleads for Help with Refugees; Russian General: "First Stage" Over, Focus Now on Eastern Ukraine; Russia Deployed Infamous Mercenaries; Ukrainian Mourners Burying War Dead Near Homes, Playgrounds; Russia Expands Laws Criminalizing "Fake News." Aired 12-1a ET

Aired March 26, 2022 - 00:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

HALA GORANI, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers around the world and also in the United States this hour. I'm Hala Gorani, coming to you live from Lviv in Ukraine. It is just past 6:00 in the morning in this Western Ukrainian city.

Now Ukraine isn't winning the war against Russia, strictly speaking. But it's not losing, either. And that could be pivotal in the days and weeks ahead.

In the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance, the U.S. says Russian troops have stopped advancing on the capital, Kyiv. Video shows damaged Russian tanks and vehicles after Ukrainian soldiers claim to have routed the Russians from a suburb east of Kyiv.

And a top Russian general now claims this is all according to Moscow's battle plan from the beginning and that its focus will now turn to Eastern Ukraine. The general also said some 1,300 Russian troops had died in the fighting, the first casualty update in some time from the Russians.

However, this doesn't square at all with the figures we are hearing from NATO and Ukraine. Ukraine's president believes the actual Russian death toll is far higher. Listen.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The number of Russian casualties in this war has already exceeded 16,000 killed. Among them are senior commanders.

There have not been reports about killed Russian colonels, general or admirals yet. But the commander of one of the occupying armies and deputy commander of the Black Sea Fleet are already there.

(END VIDEO CLIP) GORANI: Well, we are getting new video after a theater in Mariupol was bombed 10 days ago. About a thousand people were believed to be sheltering inside. Local officials now estimate 600 people survived the attack; 300 were killed in that one strike.

CNN's Sam Kiley has more now on Ukrainian forces battling to retake territory east of the capital.

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SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Russian armor smashed in a Ukrainian assault, east of the capital.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): Ukraine now claims to have blocked Russia's offensive against Kyiv.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): He said, "We've been engaged in a counterattack to recapture Druzhkivka. The operation has been a complete success. We decisively repelled the enemy."

At times, it's been a ferocious infantry fight and it's taken several weeks. Ukraine has also relied heavily on modern drones, here, ambushing Russians from the air. Tank crews are sent running for cover.

Ukraine has claimed that badly led Russian forces do have more manpower but that they are reeling under unexpected attacks and lack of supplies.

ZINA KHILKO, CIVILIAN VICTIM'S WIFE: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): What they say may be true, according to Zina Khilko, who's tending to her wounded husband in the nearby Brovary hospital. Her village was overrun by Russians. And she described dealing with Russian soldiers, who were hungry, cold and out of control.

KHILKO: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): She said, "They wore my women's hat, my coat, my boots. They wore our clothes. They took out bedding. I don't know what they've done with it. They slept. They ate. They wandered about. They stole our money."

KHILKO: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): A Russian soldier, whom she said was drunk, blasted her husband's leg off with a stolen shotgun.

KHILKO: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): "So then, we were two days in the basement," she said.

"We started stopping the blood flow and giving first aid. We've got two medics. I'm a midwife. And there was a nurse with us."

KHILKO: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): She said that two Russian officers later admitted that they didn't support Putin's invasion. And others helped her evacuate her husband, Vasyl, to Ukrainian lines.

Maxim, a professional Ukrainian soldier, was shot in the shin during a firefight a few miles from the hospital. He shares Zina's contempt for Russian forces.

MAXIM, UKRAINIAN SOLDIER: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): "Their commanders are sending their soldiers to the slaughter," he said. "These bastards, they're just sent to their deaths. The officers don't pity them. They don't even count their losses."

Civilians here, do. Andriy Mulyar, arrived at the hospital, when we were there. He'd been helping his brother, Dmitry, a beekeeper, attend his hives, when Russian shells fell among them, three hours earlier.

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KILEY (voice-over): Mortally wounded, Dmitry was dead on arrival. He leaves a wife and three kids.

ANDRIY MULYAR, DMITRY'S BROTHER: (Speaking foreign language).

KILEY (voice-over): He said, "These aren't people. They aren't even animals. I don't know what to call them" -- Sam Kiley, CNN, Brovary.

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GORANI: Well, in the coming hours, the American president, Joe Biden, will give what the White House calls a "major address" on the war. Earlier, he announced a new push to deny Russia some of the cash flow that it needs for this invasion.

He said the U.S. and the E.U. will work to wean Europe from its dependence on Russian oil and gas and prevent Moscow from reaping profits. Listen.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know that eliminating Russian gas will have costs for Europe. But it's not only the right thing to do from a moral standpoint, it's going to put us on a much stronger strategic footing.

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GORANI: All right. There -- not many details there provided on how that will actually work in practice.

After his summit with allies in Belgium, Mr. Biden flew to Poland, as you can see here. He met with U.S. troops stationed there. He told them that the international pushback against Moscow is about far more than Ukraine.

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BIDEN: The question is, who's going to prevail?

Are democracies going to prevail and the values we share?

Or are autocracies going to prevail?

And that's really what's at stake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GORANI: In addition to that major address scheduled for later today, Mr. Biden will also speak with the Polish president Andrzej Duda and meet Ukrainian refugees after setting aside more than $1 billion in new humanitarian aid for them.

For more, Kevin Liptak joins me now live from Warsaw, Poland.

And, you know, obviously, from the beginning of Biden's presidency, this sort of ideological line drawn between the world's autocracies and the world's Western democracies, this was such a big part of his foreign policy approach. And in very stark terms, we are seeing that put in practice, Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, and I think when the president first started to raise that idea, most people didn't necessarily associate Russia with the authoritarian regimes that he was talking about.

People assumed that this was China, that this was about this broader 21st century challenge between the United States and China. And this war in Russia -- in Ukraine -- has really brought it back around to these older issues, these Cold War-era issues between the West and Russia that the president is now confronting.

And this visit to Poland has really allowed him to see, at much closer range, the issues that he has been talking about in Washington, that he discussed in Brussels. He was able to see much closer up, when he is visiting this country.

And you saw that yesterday when he visited a town in southeastern Poland about 60 miles from the border with Ukraine. It was really evident, the American commitment to the region, to the security of this area, as Air Force One was taxiing down the runway.

They could see Patriot battery -- the missile batteries outside the windows. There were armored trucks, all provided by the United States to help bolster the security in this area and also to provide deterrence for Vladimir Putin, as he looks to the rest of Europe and decides maybe what he wants to do next.

And when president was visiting with the 82nd Airborne, of course, those troops were deployed to this region as part of an increase in the troop posture here. The effects of this war will also be evident today, when the president visits with refugees here in Warsaw.

Poland has accommodated millions of people fleeing the violence in Ukraine. It's something that the president, Andrzej Duda, who the president will meet today -- he made clear yesterday that Poland was welcoming of these Ukrainians. He said that they were their guests.

But the Polish government is very concerned about strains on public resources. Yesterday, Samantha Power, who is the American administrator of USAID, said that, in the coming month, the number of refugees fleeing Ukraine will actually exceed the number of refugees who fled Syria over the entirety of that war there.

So really the scale of the issue on display. Now when president meets with Andrzej Duda today, it will really underscore how much Poland has come back into the good graces of Washington as this war has proceeded.

And remember, President Biden actually lumped Poland in with Hungary and Belarus when he was describing a rise of totalitarian regimes, when he was a candidate. And now, Poland is proving very essential in the United States' strategy in this war. And that will be really on full display when he meets with government officials later today.

GORANI: Yes, we'll be following that. Kevin Liptak, thanks very much.

The mayor of Warsaw is pleading for help after his city welcomed 300,000 Ukrainian refugees since the war began. It all happened so quickly.

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GORANI: While some plan to go elsewhere, the influx has left public services struggling to cope. The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council met with the mayor and told reporters that all of Europe must bear the burden, not just Poland and neighboring countries.

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JAN EGELAND, SECRETARY GENERAL, NORWEGIAN REFUGEE COUNCIL: We need European responsibility sharing now. This is the worst war in Europe since the Second World War. It is not for the neighbors to respond to this. It's for the continent to respond to this.

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GORANI: Jan Egeland there.

Now as you can see from this map, most of the refugees from Ukraine have gone to Poland. Ukraine's other neighbors have welcomed less than a million people each. Poland is helping more than 2 million.

Arguably, Poland is a bigger country with a larger population and some of the Ukrainians who go through Poland travel on to third countries.

Germany, meanwhile, has taken 130 Ukrainians who were in Moldova. Germany officials call it the start of an air bridge that will take some 14,000 refugees across Europe.

Now the great majority of those fleeing the fighting are women and children. Men, obviously, as many of you know, have been conscripted, so families have been broken up. Our Melissa Bell brings us some of their stories from a Polish border crossing.

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MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For a month now, they have arrived day and night at Medyka crossing, mothers and their children carrying little, burdened only by the images of what they've fled.

BELL: Where is this, Chernihiv?

TATYANA ZELENSKA, REFUGEE: Chernihiv.

BELL (voice-over): Tatyana spent more than two weeks getting to Medyka with her niece, nephew and daughter, traveling by day and sheltering in basements at night, in fear of the sound of constant shelling.

But she says, worst of all, the sound of planes at night dropping bombs.

"They drop them on the hospitals where the sick are," she says, "on the bakeries where they make bread so we don't have anything to eat; on the water facilities, so we don't have anything to drink."

DARYA MALEVANCHUK, REFUGEE: The most scared was when the plane --

BELL (voice-over): For Darya as well, it was the sound of the planes at night that scared her the most on her three-day journey from Kharkiv. It was that sound, she says, that forced her and her son from their first underground shelter.

"As a mom," she says, "I was scared. My son handled it better. It's harder for the mother."

And for a grandmother, perhaps hardest of all. Larissa (ph) and her daughter, Elizabeta (ph), escaped from Irpin more than a week ago.

"A shell hit our house," says Elizabeta (ph). "That's it on the fifth floor. We had a Ukrainian flag hanging on the balcony, so they targeted it."

That was when the family decided to flee, heading from Irpin through other occupied towns like Hostomel and Bucha.

"People can't get out," says Larissa. "It's too dangerous because, even if a woman walks out with a white flag and a child, they don't look. They just shoot, kill. They spare no one. Anyway, we can't go home now," she says, "because there is no home." So like millions of others, they head into Europe after crossing a

border they never wanted to have to cross -- Melissa Bell, CNN, Medyka, Poland.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Romania is also housing a growing number of refugees. More than half a million have fled there so far. Now officials are preparing for another wave to come in. Miguel Marquez has the details from Bucharest.

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MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Just two things happening with refugees in Romania right now. One, the number of Ukrainian refugees coming over the border is starting to tick up ever so slightly. It had been on the decrease for the last two weeks. And now, it's starting to increase again.

It's not clear if this is the beginning of another big wave of refugees coming across the border here.

The other thing is that it is settling in, to many that we speak to, that this is not going to be weeks or months; this is going to be months and years. So they are looking at other options from -- to move on from Romania, essentially, applying for visas in other places.

Many we speak to would love to go to the U.S. But right now, they are saying that, when they inquire, it is just not possible to even apply for a visa to the U.S. So it's welcome news that the president has announced that these 100,000 visa applications will be made available to Ukrainian refugees.

But it's not entirely clear when they can start applying. In the days ahead, that should become more clear to them.

But we spoke to one woman who was from Kharkiv. This is a very sensitive soul. She was an artist, 61 years old, had sort of been chased out of Crimea in 2014 by the Russian invasion there.

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MARQUEZ (voice-over): She still doesn't understand what this war is about.

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LYUBOV BEIZMENOVA, ARTIST AND UKRAINIAN REFUGEE (through translator): I don't understand why Kharkiv, which is Russian, must be destroyed. We are Ukraine. Kharkiv is Ukraine, Russian-speaking but Ukraine.

How can you be an older brother for 70 years and then beat your own?

I don't understand. I don't understand.

(END VIDEO CLIP) MARQUEZ: So this woman has now applied for a visa to Canada. She has a friend there and thinks that it will be granted in the next couple days. She's left everything behind in Kharkiv. She is not entirely sure she will go back there but she believes that she will eventually and that Ukraine will remain Ukraine and that it will rebuild and get beyond this.

On the numbers coming across the border, there is a very big number of refugees that are internally displaced in Ukraine. And that is the concern now.

And what they're preparing for in places like Bucharest, where they have tons of availability in makeshift refugee centers right now in the city, waiting to see if those humanitarian corridors open up and if the Russians continue to push into the West and into those civilian areas with the sort of massive force that they have been doing.

They are prepared for it here in Romania. Everyone holding their breath to see how far this will go -- Back to you.

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GORANI: All right. Thanks very much, Miguel Marquez is in Bucharest.

And our coverage continues from Lviv after a break.

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GORANI: Welcome back to our breaking news coverage of Russia's war on Ukraine.

Sevgil Musayeva is a Ukrainian journalist originally from Crimea. She is now the editor in chief of "Ukrayinska Pravda." She joins me from Little Rock, Arkansas, where she has been attending the funeral of American journalist Brett Renaud, who was killed by Russian forces.

First of all, I am so sorry that you are having to attend funerals of journalists killed while trying to report on what's going on in this country.

What is your connection to Brent Renaud?

SEVGIL MUSAYEVA, "UKRAYINSKA PRAVDA": Thank you for your question. Yes, we were classmates (INAUDIBLE) three years ago (INAUDIBLE). And we became friends and (INAUDIBLE) my colleague (INAUDIBLE) will be killed in Ukraine. My city, like Kyiv. I left, unfortunately, when Kyiv -- when war had started. Yes.

GORANI: Yes. So what -- talk to us about -- about the emotional aspect of having to say goodbye to someone that you have befriended and who, as you just said so emotionally, was killed in your city.

MUSAYEVA: Yes. You know that -- the impact of (ph) this war, the brutal war against Ukraine, we feel now in the U.S. And you feel it (ph) in the U.S. and I also think that (INAUDIBLE) for all world.

And I also think that journalists during this war are target. And this is war -- is also against truth. And it is battle between truth and propaganda. Unfortunately, Putin's propaganda kills our children, kills our women and kills our friends and kills journalists.

GORANI: So you are saying that journalists are targeted and we've seen, sadly, other journalists lose their lives in Ukraine.

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GORANI: What's it been like for the journalists -- absolutely -- what's it been like for the -- for the journalists you keep in touch with in Ukraine, many of whom are Ukrainian?

So they are reporting on this war that is happening in their own country. It's quite a -- it's quite a different dynamic when you report on an invasion and an assault against your own land.

What's it been like for those journalists?

MUSAYEVA: You know, couple days ago, I receive a question from my foreign colleagues, do you have any kind of agreement with the government how to cover this war?

And I responded, of course, no. But we have this agreement with other people and with our society. And we see that other society do everything possible to protect our country.

And journalists here also, the part of this war in informational field, I mean battle for the truth. And I think that we -- because nobody believes Russia anymore in this -- in this war, because Russia fight against humanity.

Russia fight against civilians. And what we saw in Mariupol, what we saw (INAUDIBLE) status (ph) is crucial. And I think that all we understand and all of the world understand that it's war crimes.

GORANI: Right. I wonder -- we keep hearing that, inside of Russia, the Kremlin propaganda is quite effective, because older Russians, especially, don't necessarily have access to social media. Some of those platforms have been shut off.

Do you ever hear back from Russians, who see your coverage or your reporters' coverage from the ground?

I wonder if any of it makes it into Russia, despite the fact that the Kremlin is trying to put that firewall up?

MUSAYEVA: We still have a lot of readers for "Ukrayinska Pravda" from Russia, around 800,000 people every day. So -- but I think it's not enough. Unfortunately, Russia propaganda works with main population for the last 10 years.

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MUSAYEVA: So that's why we don't have a chance now to say something. And you know that a lot of people, a lot of natives, a lot of natives from Russians don't believe Ukrainians, don't believe their sisters, brothers. They believe their TV stations. They believe their coverage of this war and for these things connected to propaganda as well.

GORANI: All right. Thank you so much for joining us from Little -- yes -- Little Rock, Arkansas, Sevgil Musayeva. Thank you so much for spending some time with us today.

Ukraine says Russia has not given up its plan to assassinate President Zelenskyy. And now, he's reportedly being targeted by a group that some describe as Putin's private army. That's ahead.

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GORANI: Welcome back. I'm Hala Gorani, reporting live from Lviv, Ukraine.

A major shift in Russia's stated goals for its war on Ukraine just as its advances on major cities stall. A top Russian general claims that the first stage of this invasion is complete, according to Russia, and that efforts will now focus on Eastern Ukraine and, quote, "the liberation of the Donbas."

That is the region with the two Russian-backed self-declared republics that had been secured already. A senior U.S. Defense official says Russian forces around Kyiv are in defensive positions and that all ground movements toward the capital have stopped, although long-range strikes and air attacks are continuing.

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GORANI (voice-over): Now take a look at these new satellite images of the Russian ship destroyed in a southern Ukrainian port controlled by the Russians. It is one of the counterattacks touted by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He says Russian forces will be met with resistance everywhere. Listen.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE (through translator): I am grateful to our defenders, who showed the occupiers that the sea will not be calm for them, even when there is no storm, because there will be fires and on those Russian ships that departed this week on the famous route from the port or Berdyansk.

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GORANI: Well, the Russian' advance on Kyiv may be halted for the moment but Ukrainians are not letting their guard down. Fred Pleitgen shows us how the capital is preparing for what comes next.

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FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, is still very much on a war footing. We're right in the city center. And as you can see, there's a tank barrier that was set up here with sandbags, obviously a defensive position.

And this is something that you really see throughout the entire city with a lot of checkpoints, a lot of soldiers on the ground, defense forces there as well.

And just to give you an idea, we are literally in the city center. Over there, you see the Maidan, of course, right in the middle of the Ukrainian capital.

At the same time, though, you do get the sense here right now that the people here have a little more room to breathe and they feel a little more secure because of some of the gains that the Ukrainian forces have been making.

For instance, at a checkpoint like this one, you do see a lot more vehicle traffic than, for instance, we have been seeing over the past couple of days. There's more cars going through here.

Nevertheless, of course, the situation still remains very dangerous, with Russians saying that they hit a fuel depot just south of the Ukrainian capital. And in general, of course, fighting still going on, not very far from where we are.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: All right. Fred Pleitgen, thanks very much.

It is not just conventional armed forces; Ukraine is accusing Russia of deploying an infamous mercenary group as part of its invasion. Independent researchers say Wagner mercenaries are guns for hire, who do the Kremlin's dirty work but provide plausible deniability.

As David McKenzie reports, Ukraine says the mercenaries have been sent there on a very specific mission. And we have to warn you, some images in his report are graphic.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A Russian mercenary takes a selfie video in Syria. It's a recruitment- styled pitch --

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MCKENZIE (voice-over): -- allegedly for the notorious Wagner Group, a brutal force believed to be linked to the Kremlin.

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MCKENZIE (voice-over): In the shadows of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian defense official tells us that Wagner contractors were in the country and had a very specific mission.

MCKENZIE: What is the objective, do you think, in Ukraine, right now?

MARKIYAN LUBKIVSKY, ADVISER TO THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE OF UKRAINE: They wanted to assassinate the leadership of Ukraine, our president and prime minister. So that was the goal. And a couple of groups, couple of people, were sent to Ukraine, without any success.

ZELENSKYY (through translator): I am here. We are not putting down arms.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): The primary target, he says, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ukraine's military says documentary evidence gathered by intelligence officials and special forces outlines their alleged mission. He says several Wagner operatives have been eliminated, identified by their unique dog tags. CNN couldn't independently corroborate the account.

LUBKIVSKY: We need to find all these people and they need to go to the court. They're absolutely illegal.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Wagner contractors surfaced in Eastern Ukraine in 2014, exposed by research groups and CNN investigations. Their operations span the Middle East and Africa.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

MCKENZIE (voice-over): U.S. officials accuse Wagner of multiple human rights abuses in multiple countries.

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MCKENZIE (voice-over): In this disturbing 2017 video investigated by CNN, Wagner mercenaries appear to be torturing and murdering a Syrian man as they make jokes.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Speaking foreign language).

MCKENZIE (voice-over): The Kremlin said the incident had nothing to do with the Russian military operations in Syria. And they've repeatedly denied any links to Wagner.

U.S. officials say that Wagner was started by this man, Dmitry Utkin, a veteran of the Chechen conflict and allegedly bankrolled by businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin, an oligarch so close to Russia's leader, he's nicknamed Putin's chef. Under multiple U.S. sanctions, Prigozhin denies any involvement in Wagner.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They want blood. They want to fight.

MCKENZIE (voice-over): But this senior researcher at the Dossier Center says Wagner is Putin's private army. We agreed to hide their identity for their safety. They've spent years investigating Wagner's links to the Kremlin.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They operate without any law, without any rules. They can do whatever in a way, whatever they want. Then, when there is a call to MOD or there is a call to Mr. Putin, "What your guys are doing in this particular country?" the response will be, "These are individuals. They have no link to the Kremlin."

MCKENZIE (voice-over): Despite the invasion and new allegations of an assassination plot, Ukraine's president says he isn't going anywhere -- David McKenzie, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

GORANI: Well, a Ukrainian family risked their lives to leave the besieged city of Mariupol. One of them spoke with CNN about what they endured during their harrowing escape. My colleague, Kristie Lu Stout, has that story after the break.

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KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: I am Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. And we are getting a painful look at how death and destruction are spreading across Ukraine.

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STOUT (voice-over): The casualties are just so staggering that people are resorting to burying the dead in their own back yards. In this video, you can see wooden crosses marking graves next to an apartment building in Mariupol.

One woman who buried her stepfather near a playground is sharing their story. He died after the car he was in was bombed while a doctor was trying to get him to the hospital.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): When the doctor was taking our stepfather to the hospital, we found the doctor in the nearby building. And this guy took a seat in the car instead of me. And they blew him up in this car. It could have been me. (END VIDEO CLIP)

STOUT: The U.S. says it has increasing information corroborating the existence of mass graves in Mariupol, including one that appeared to hold 200 bodies. The organization says that more than 1,000 civilians have been killed in Russia's war in Ukraine.

Now as hard as it is to survive in Mariupol, leaving the besieged city is no easy task. An 18-year-old university student and her parents had to put their lives on the line to escape from there.

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STOUT (voice-over): This video shows the basement that the family lived in, sharing the space for a week with strangers, before they finally decided to leave.

Now the father managed to keep this video in his phone, despite demands by Russian soldiers at checkpoints to delete negative content. His daughter, Maria, spoke to CNN's John Berman from outside Mariupol.

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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARIA, MARIUPOL REFUGEE: I don't think that nobody abroad can understand truly what just happened in my hometown. Like you can't even imagine living in the basement is not the worst thing happening in Mariupol. Like this town turned into a ghost.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: "This town turned into a ghost."

I know there were explosions all around you. In one case there was a shell that hit, what, I think we have pictures?

You have pictures of it hit 30 meters from you.

MARIA: Yes, we have lots of pictures of rockets fell down on the street, in our houses, in our cars on the streets, on the hospitals and the schools and it's actually terrifying. Like the sounds of bomb being just makes your blood stop and boil because of fear and the only thing that you -- that you are thinking about is like how to make out alive of it.

BERMAN: When you were in that basement, how many were you?

And did you think you'd make it out?

MARIA: I can't count the amount of people living here because this basement was like a huge basement and, you know, almost every house has such basements and there are lots and lots of people.

Like I think by that moment nobody is living in their houses. They are just -- they have moved all into basements to save their lives because staying in your home is not safe anymore. BERMAN: Staying in your home is not safe anymore but also trying it leave can be incredibly dangerous. You managed to get into a car and to try to make your way out of the city. Talk to me about the Russians as you were leaving. They were telling you to delete the pictures on your phones.

What were they saying?

MARIA: You know, the story was like that. We were standing in a huge line to leave the city on a Russian checkpoint and I remember the friend of my father came to my car and he said delete everything you can delete.

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MARIA: Delete every photo of the Mariupol -- photos of destruction, photos that agitate for Ukraine. Delete as much provocative messages in your own messages as you can so you don't provoke the soldiers to leave you in the city.

And I remember when we just came to a checkpoint. They literally took our phones and they were scrolling and scrolling to find anything that can provoke them and luckily we deleted almost everything so we could go through a checkpoint.

BERMAN: They didn't want any pictures of what was happening there. You think they wanted to hide the truth?

MARIA: You know, it's -- yes. They just wanted to hide -- to hide the truth, block the truth but these photos cannot be hidden. Somebody catch it on the internet, somebody shares it with their friends and relatives, so these photos are worldwide.

So it's impossible to hide anything because we see it. We live in that condition, so we cannot be just defeated easily. And they cannot tell us that this is our soldiers shooting themselves because we see everything. We are not fools.

BERMAN: You are also -- we are not fools. You are living truth, Maria. Your mere presence, your being here with us telling the story tells us everything. And just one more thing. I do understand that even as you left and made it through the Russian checkpoints you felt like the Russians were firing on you as you were leaving.

MARIA: Yes, there's a story of us leaving Russian checkpoints, you know, of who is joining you from the city we have passed maybe six Russian checkpoints. They were like each 30 kilometers. They were checking our baggage, our documents, our phones, et cetera.

And I remember the story when a Russian soldiers -- Russian soldier, after checking our documents, he wished us having a nice trip. And I was very confused by this word -- by these words.

And then 20 minutes after the rockets just began shooting in our spines, on the cars of the civilians, cars where kids were in. And they were just shooting on the civilians leaving Mariupol. BERMAN: Maria, as I said, thank you for sharing your story. They cannot hide the truth. They cannot hide these stories. People like you who I know you were a colleague student home on break basically and then this is what you had to live through.

We're so glad that you and your family made it out safely. We wish you the best. Please let us know if there's anything we can do.

MARIA: Unfortunately, you cannot help Mariupol now. The only thing you can help is people going on protest and educate to close the sky in the Ukraine because the main weapon of Russian soldiers are rockets and bombs dropping from the sky.

You know, a week ago they dropped a huge bomb on the drama theatre in the center of the city and there were lots and lots of people hiding here. And today our government said that nearly 300 of people are dead, buried alive in the drama theatre.

BERMAN: Three hundred people killed in that theatre and we've seen some of the pictures for the first time and it's devastating. Maria, thank you for being with us. Please stay safe. Be well.

MARIA: Thank you so much.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STOUT: Such a terrifying and eloquent account from a Ukrainian teenager.

Meanwhile, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, says Russia is being cancelled and he is comparing the treatment to what the author of the Harry Potter books received. We have her response, after the break.

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STOUT: Russian president Vladimir Putin has signed a new law that outlaws the dissemination of false information. This is according to his state news agency. It broadens an earlier censorship law that made it a crime to spread so-called fake news.

Officials say it also targets the public discrediting of Russian government agencies working abroad. The censorship law, introduced shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, is part of a media crackdown that has forced some news outlets to close and journalists to leave the country. Penalties include up to 15 years in prison and fines of up to $14,000.

President Putin says the West has been trying to cancel Russia and he is comparing it to the backlash that J.K. Rowling received. She drew harsh criticism in the past for expressing views that some perceived as transphobic. Atika Shubert has more.

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ATIKA SHUBERT, JOURNALIST: A few things we've been watching out of Moscow. First on Friday morning, Russian president Vladimir Putin addressed a form of arts and literature in a video call.

And he compared the international backlash against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine to cancel culture, specifically against "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling.

Now he said that Russia's language, literature and its economy was now being discriminated against.

Rowling was very quick to respond with a tweet. She did not mention the Russian president by name.

She did say, however, that such criticisms, quote, "possibly were not best made by those currently slaughtering civilians." She also said that her charity, Lumos, has been donating to Ukrainian children's causes since 2013.

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SHUBERT: Now also on Friday, Russia's ministry of defense made its first major update on the casualties incurred during this war. In that briefing, it announced that more than 1,300 Russian military personnel have been killed, nearly 4,000 have been wounded.

Now the Ukrainian government insists those numbers should be much, much higher. Both NATO and U.S. Defense officials estimate that the death toll of Russian military personnel so far could be more than 7,000 -- I'm Atika Shubert for CNN.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STOUT: And that does it for this hour. I'm Kristie Lu Stout in Hong Kong. Our breaking news coverage live from Lviv continues after the break.